Tag Archives: Scrabulous

Love So Fine

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It’s Tuesday again. Not a bad day, could have been better. The pendulum swings again. Last night played a lot of Scrabulous with Julio online. He won the game since I kept challenging his words and my challenges proved invalid. If it were a face to face game of Scrabble I would have won, no problem. But it wasn’t and I was lucky to break 200 points. I was happy with that, but unhappy with the cheesy cheap words that Julio threw down.

It was infuriating and Julio, two floors down knew it. I was surprised that he was online for so long. Stine was sitting right next to him ready to give birth any day now. She’s quite hormonal and I had to laugh seeing Julio skulking outside the building when I came home tonight, wary about going upstairs. I woke up this morning at 5:00 thanks to Bill leaving his alarm clock on. I somehow managed to turn it off and sleep for another hour.

Bus ride, uneventful as it should be. Spring is here so no overcoat today. It was a nice walk, even walking past the Bear Sterns building where there have been news trucks lined up outside. Got to the office, no one in. As quiet as usual, yet eerily quiet. Tom Chin was out of the office which was a good thing and I was able to find time to talk to Greg Stevens. I knocked on his door and we chatted. I started it off by saying ‘what the hell is going on here?’ Yes he is the President of the company and that is how I talk to him.

He explained that no money is coming in, there are deals in the works but no one gets paid until the deal is done. It’s like that all over the financial world right now, but I don’t have to start looking for a new job. I’m not six figured. Full figured, yes. Which for once is working in my favor. Greg explained that Moe was let go, since he wasn’t bringing in any money and his contacts weren’t contacting him. Quinn was explained about by saying that since he has another job with some Irish company he’ll be concentrating on that, while maintaining a consultant position at the firm, and renting his office space. Padma was the heartbreaker. They’re probably going to let her go, or keep her in a part time position. I hate knowing something about someone. She asked me if I knew anything and I had to skirt the issue. I complimented her on her skirt instead.

I emailed my brother Brian last night, telling him that Nick Lowe was playing McSwells on May 2. He asked me to get tickets and I went online and found it to be sold out. This afternoon I called Goons, the local record store and they said they had 4 tickets. I asked if they could hold 2 and I would pick them up after work, but no, they wouldn’t do that. I called El Jefe and asked him to go buy them and I would reimburse him after work. He had no problem with that and soon enough I owned 2 tickets.

I stopped by after work and hung out, Lady Gigglepuss was still at work, so Rand and I shot the shit about our past and various people we used to know. My ex-roommate Jimmy Lee is back in the states after living in Austria with his Austrian wife. El Jefe ran into him at McSwells a few weeks ago. So I guess I can expect to see him at Martha’s Badly Drawn Comics party on the 26th. That should be interesting. Hello to Jimmy Lee. If you know Jimmy Lee you know that he probably, more than likely Googles his name. But with a name like Jimmy Lee, there must be millions out there. Hell, it was even a song by Aretha in the 80’s.

Please send good thoughts, prayers and warm wishes to my brother in law Rex Dippre, and Annemarie and their son Earl. They need a whole bunch, so send them to Arcata CA.

Shoplifters of the World Unite

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Well last night was very chilled out. I hung out at home, watched TV. Actually was watching John Adams, quite sad last night. Also watched Marianne Faithfull with her 20th Century Blues, singing the songs of Kurt Weill and one by Harry Nilsson. She’s a favorite of mine. I saw her in the 80’s at the Bottom Line on the Stranger Weather tour. She was off junk and looking great, smoking up a storm, but then again everyone was back then. Strange Weather is a Tom Waits song, presently owned by Marianne.

It was also the song that kept playing in my head last Wednesday when I was caught in a power play in the office. It’s a melancholy song and it rings true, especially with the lines, ‘all over the world, strangers talk only about the weather. All over the world, it’s the same’. Yeah it would be a difficult song to link arms and have a sing along while hoisting pints. While John Adams was watching his son Charlie die, I was playing Scrabulous on Facebook with Julio and his cheap words. Scrabulous is a very unauthorized online version of Scrabble which Julio and I used to play back in his jazzy days. His words are cheap but admissible.

Still I rallied and won the first game I had played in a number of years. Bill came home last night, first time in weeks, at least when I’ve been here. It was really nice to be able to hold him while sleeping, and no, I didn’t throw any punches in the middle of the night, though oddly enough I woke up with some strange mark on my nose. It doesn’t hurt but still I have no idea what it is or how it got there. Just a small blotch about a centimeter long, and of course, it’s red. I don’t think it was there before I went to sleep. Bill noticed it too and I told him, maybe he hit me (for once) while sleeping. I don’t think he liked that humorous accusation.

I left the apartment before Bill and sat on a soon to be very crowded bus. Got to the office, once again before everyone else. The day off I had on Friday made it difficult to get motivated this morning but I got my act together and made coffee. As usual the dribs and drabs trickled in. One of the people I work with, Padma is very nice and very smart. She’s a PhD and we usually have some fun chats throughout the week. Today she asked me where Quinn was. Quinn is a guy from Ireland, not very social hence my never ever writing about him before. I think he’s a jerk with a brogue. He used to live in Hoboken and even owns a restaurant in town. I tried talking to him about that, he was so unresponsive I thought I should check his pulse.

Anyway, he wasn’t in. Last week Vivek told me he would be working out of the office more than usual. OK by me. So Padma asked where he was and I told her that he’s going to be working out of the office from time to time. No big deal, right? Well to Tom Chin it was a big deal. About 20 minutes Tom Chin comes up to me, telling me that I’ve spilled the beans. I immediately thought, I made coffee, and I don’t recall spilling any beans. I didn’t recall any beans at all, we get our coffee ground. Tom Chin was very upset and had me meet him in Greg Stevens office.

There was Greg, nice guy, a friend almost, sitting at his desk, telling me to close the door. Next to him sat Tom Chin, angry. Greg asked me what did I say to Padma. I told him what I told her, which is what I heard from Vivek, that Quinn will probably be working out of the office more often. Greg turned to Tom Chin and said, ‘No big deal.’ Apparently something is happening here and I don’t know what it is. I have an idea though and it doesn’t turn out well for anyone.

Had an excellent chat with brother Frank. He really sounds almost as good as he did before the stroke. Perhaps the seizure he had reset the wiring in his brain. Still has a lot of rehab to go through though. We talked about John Adams amongst other things, including my Arcade Fire meltdown last year. He remembered the anniversary. Still neither one of us could figure out what cause my anhedonia that night. It was odd especially since I had reread the emails we exchanged the day after the meltdown, when I woke up and realized the problem wasn’t with him, it was actually with me. It was a good talk and I’m glad he’s one of my best friends.